With Clusters Posted July 10, 2004 Share Posted July 10, 2004 Did a search on this topic, but there didn't seem to be any definitive information. How does the "hide" command work for vehicles? It it only usefull during setup of a battle, for vehicles on defense (supposing cammo netting and such has had time to be placed)? If so, how usefull is it, in terms of getting spotted or not? What sort of terrain is necessary? Does it only work (if it works at all) in "spotted trees"? What about "brush", or behind a hedge? I just can't figure out if the order is worth a damn. Hate to give the command, and then just watch the vehicle get plunked w/o even firing back, because it is vainly trying to "hide"! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoMac Posted July 10, 2004 Share Posted July 10, 2004 The Vehicle hide order is there just to show you what units are on top, inside, or bottom of vehicle. Its the same as having the no tree or sparse tree order, you can see the units better. [ July 10, 2004, 12:22 PM: Message edited by: JoMc67 ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
With Clusters Posted July 10, 2004 Author Share Posted July 10, 2004 Honestly? :confused: 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenfedoroff Posted July 10, 2004 Share Posted July 10, 2004 Originally posted by JoMc67: The Vehicle hide order is there just to show you what units are on top, inside, or bottom of vehicle. Its the same as having the no tree or sparse tree order, you can see the units better. He might not be asking about the Hot-Keys, as far as Hide Vehicle. Are you asking about the "Hide" Command from the Orders menu? I guess the best way to find out is set-up and play a Hot-Seat battle against yourself, with some select vehicles on "Hide"... or... maybe one of the grogs will show up to explain. Good question though... I'd like to "Hide" my Marders in scattered trees with a Cover-arc for armor, but I don't want them spotted and mortared to death in one turn either. Ken 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted July 10, 2004 Share Posted July 10, 2004 The 'hide vehicles' visual option and 'hide' order are two different things. JoMc67 apparently is talking about the former. The hide command for vehicles tells the crew to make as little noise as possible (turning the engine off I suppose), and has nothing to do with camoflage. Camoflage is automatically assumed on all units, whether attacker or defender, at the beginning of a battle until they have moved. That depends on terrain, naturally it has no effect for a tank in the open but makes it a bit slower to spot in scattered trees. To get back to ordering vehicles to hide, I think it can be useful when ambushing nearby enemies. It can prevent enemy infantry from gaining a 'sound contact' until it's too late. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
With Clusters Posted July 10, 2004 Author Share Posted July 10, 2004 I'm definitely not talking visuals. I want to know if I order a vehicle to "hide", will it be actually hard to spot (and not clobbered while sitting defenseless w/ its thumb up its posterior) by the enemy. To be truly effective, does it need to be "ordered" right at set-up? In what sort of terrain is it most/least effective? If a vehicle has moved after set-up (and presumeably ditched its cammo net or whatever), is the command worth a damn? Meaning, does driving into some scattered trees or brush, and then turning off the engine, have an actual (in terms of not being spotted) effect in the game? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted July 10, 2004 Share Posted July 10, 2004 Hardly no effect for spotting, but makes it harder to achieve sound contact. This is how I see it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boo Radley Posted July 11, 2004 Share Posted July 11, 2004 Depends. If your vehicle is in scattered trees or the like, the hide command does seem to help. If it's out in the open and in LOS, it's going to get spotted. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenAsJade Posted July 11, 2004 Share Posted July 11, 2004 I believe that the business about "hide" making tanks harder to spot is at best speculation. I haven't read of anyone testing it out. The reason I think its speculation is that sound contacts only happen when the vehicle is in motion - obviously not hiding. So "hide" hardly helps there. There is only one definite effect of hiding a tank that I'm aware of: it won't shoot at anything unless its shot at, or unless it has a covered arc and something moves into the arc. If you have a tank sitting hull down looking over an expanse of "open", and a not-to-scary enemy tank appears, the friendly one will open fire. If the friendly one is "hiding" it will not open fire. If you give the friendly one a covered vehicle arc, then it will not open fire until the enemy tank enters the arc. (Same with covered infantry arc. It's worth noting that HTs with no ATG capacity don't trigger a vehicle covered arc: only vehicles that can threaten the tank trigger the vehicle covered arc). That, I believe, is what "hide" is all about for AFVs. (And I know this because I tried it extensively, as documented in some long forgotten thread on coverd arcs). GaJ. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted July 11, 2004 Share Posted July 11, 2004 Originally posted by GreenAsJade: The reason I think its speculation is that sound contacts only happen when the vehicle is in motion - obviously not hiding. So "hide" hardly helps there.I'm sure you can get sound contacts with motionless vehicles. It does happen. In fact, you can get sound contacts even with infantry that isn't moving. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenAsJade Posted July 11, 2004 Share Posted July 11, 2004 Well - you learn something every day! The only AFV sound contacts I've ever seen have been moving along! I guess ideally someone would test it out and see if hiding reduces sound contacts, but that's a tricky test to set up! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CobaltTiger Posted July 12, 2004 Share Posted July 12, 2004 Well, I tried a quick test, but the results weren't that encouraging. I set up two groups of 3 tigers and 3 PSW 221s in scattered trees with about 500m between the groups and each individual vehicle being about 250m from its neighbor (in other words, two lines of six vehicles each). Next to the scattered trees the vehicles were in I put a swath of forest to break LOS, with the vehicle as close to the forest as possible while still being in the scattered trees. I then put Rifle 44 squads in the forest, with one squad per vehicle placed 100m away. The HQ units I stuck in a map corner out of the way. Conditions were clear, mid day, breeze. One vehicle group was hidden while the other was not. I then had the infantry move 50m towards the vehicles. Almost as soon as the infranty squads stopped moving I received sound contacts on all vehicles. Repeating the test a few times, there seemed to be a tendancy for the hidden vehicles to take a few seconds longer to give a sound contact, sometimes up to 5 or 6 seconds. But it wasn't a rule -- occasionally one of the hidden vehicles would be the first to register. There also did not seem to be any distinction in how fast the two different types of vehicle appeared. Repeating the test with strong winds acheived an identical result (I had thought the winds would affect sound, but apparently not). I also varied the distance the infranty moved. 35m gave no sound contacts, 45m gave contacts for all vehicles. I should probably have tried 40m, but I was getting tired of all that clicking. I also tried seeing if hiding affected actual spotting distance, using move to contact, although this setup wasn't the best for testing that for a variety of reasons (particularly because the vehicles were all in profile to the infranty, hehe). Again, there were no differences. Ranges tended to be between 14m and 24m for both types of vehicles, hidden or not. So, I'm not sure hiding a vehicle makes much of a difference at all. I ran this test perhaps a dozen times total, and only once had a vehicle not give a sound contact: one of the PSW 221s when the infranty moved 50m in strong winds. So perhaps hide vehicles just in case, but don't count on it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenAsJade Posted July 12, 2004 Share Posted July 12, 2004 So this is pretty funny: both Sergei and I appear to have been wrong: - I was wrong: it looks like stationary vehicles give sound contacts (wow!) - It looks like hiding doesn't affect that! Thanks for the test! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenfedoroff Posted July 12, 2004 Share Posted July 12, 2004 I would be more interested in how well AFVs hide in relation to a moving, buttoned-up enemy vehicle at several hundred yards. I'd like to place my TDs in ambush positions on the flank of the (anticipated) enemy advance. Assuming the enemy infantry get suppressed and can't scout with the tanks, I might be able to get multiple shots from my TDs from ambush before being spotted. Has anybody run any tests on the spotting ability of buttoned-up tanks on "Hiding" AFVs? Ken 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karlis Posted July 12, 2004 Share Posted July 12, 2004 Stationary units definitely give out sound contacts. In a CMAK PBEM quick battle, I got a "gun sounds?" contact on a 17lb gun that was hidden at the start of the battle and never moved. Of course, my infantry was about 10-20 meters away, so they probably heard one of the crew sneeze or something. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fredrock1957 Posted July 12, 2004 Share Posted July 12, 2004 I did some testing in CMBB a while back with two PzIV G's (IIRC) and two PSW 221's located in a symetrical city block or two.. placed one of each on the right and left side of the intersection about 60m away from the intersection.. Used a Russian Tank Hunter team walking down the street towards the intersection (on Move to Contact).. no wind... Tried different combinations of the Vehicles from all Hiding to some hiding etc... What I discovered (again if IIRC) is that sound contact was achieved approximately 30-40m earlier by the Tank Hunter team when the vehicles where not hiding... never thought about trying in winding conditions and just believed that in scattered trees etc the variables were too great... but a mirrored city block seemed to show there is some effect 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CobaltTiger Posted July 12, 2004 Share Posted July 12, 2004 As a followup, I just tried again moving 40m with strong winds. I only had time to run the one trial at the moment, but I ended up with one PSW 221 and one tiger giving a contact in both groups. So it would seem that even at the "borderline" point being hidden doesn't influence sound contacts much. kenfedoroff: Good question. If I get a chance tonight I might try and set up something like that. Fredrock1957: That's an interesting setup you tried out. I hadn't thought of using a city. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slappy Posted July 12, 2004 Share Posted July 12, 2004 In my experience, there is absolutely no reason to ever hide a vehicle in any version of CM at any time. I have never seen any spotting advantage to hiding, but I have seen significantly longer response times by that vehicle when fire on. Here's what usually happens. You hide a tank, usually in some light trees. Enemy tanks show up and spot the vehicle normally. Your tanks sits there happily thinking it's hidden while the enemy turrets traverse toward your vehicle. The enemy opens fire. If the first hits don't penetrate, they keep cranking away while you traverse towards them. It's almost guaranteed death. Sure, you could use a cover arc, but you could do that without hiding, so what's the point. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
With Clusters Posted July 13, 2004 Author Share Posted July 13, 2004 What about hiding at set-up? Is it just the same as using the hide command once the game has started, or is it more effective (assuming time to arrange some sort of cammoflauge, etc.)? Or is it a worthless order all the time? Even against planes? Can anyone state any advantage (even small ones) to "hiding" a vehicle, at any stage in the game? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted July 13, 2004 Share Posted July 13, 2004 As I said, "camoflage is automatically assumed on all units, whether attacker or defender, at the beginning of a battle until they have moved." 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FM Paul Heinrik Posted July 13, 2004 Share Posted July 13, 2004 At the start of a scenerio, I've hidden smaller avf in scattered trees and enemy avf did not spot them until I targeted them, which I don't think is realistic. Enemy infantry never seems to have a problem spotting avf regardless of your tanks status. Big afv are always spotted if in LOS. During a game hiding does nothing for afv that I've noticed, doesn't seem to help against air attack anymore than just being near some woods does. It seems best if you want to "hide" your afv to just keep them out of LOS of the enemy. I think a hull down tank should be (apparently not)just as hard to spot as an AT gun is. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
With Clusters Posted July 13, 2004 Author Share Posted July 13, 2004 So, to sum up, the only time "hiding" a vehicle does any good is at the set-up, and only for "smaller" (how small?) vehicles, and even then, it doesn't work against infantry at all (at any range?). Is that pretty much it? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tar Posted July 14, 2004 Share Posted July 14, 2004 In CMBO, hiding vehicles was occassionally useful to get them to stop shooting at enemy troops that you didn't want them wasting ammunition on. It accomplished this goal, but had the drawback that they tended not to shoot at other targets either. In CMBB and CMAK, you get better results using the Cover Arc and Cover Vehicle Arc commands, since they tend to be directional or directional and target-specific, so you don't increase vulnerability quite so much. Summary: Hiding vehicles pretty much just makes them hold their fire. It doesn't give much of a spotting advantage. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
junk2drive Posted July 14, 2004 Share Posted July 14, 2004 do you ever wonder if the bfc boys read these posts, then laugh amongst themselves, at our speculations? since they must know how the program was written, i wish sometimes they would jump in and tell us how things should work. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenAsJade Posted July 14, 2004 Share Posted July 14, 2004 Originally posted by With Clusters: So, to sum up, the only time "hiding" a vehicle does any good is at the set-up, and only for "smaller" (how small?) vehicles, and even then, it doesn't work against infantry at all (at any range?). Is that pretty much it? Hiding at setup is the same as any other time: there is no difference. Hiding _is_ useful to stop tanks opening fire on infantry when you are trying to ambush another tank. It is quite effective to put your tank on "hide" and give it a vehicle covered arc where you want to do the ambush. Your tank won't give itself away while the enemy recon troops try to get it to fire on them. Just dont blame me if a 'zook pops out of a nearby bush and your tank doesn't shoot at him GaJ. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.